traveling to Samut Songkhram: 7 hours and 92 baht later

Brace yourself, this is going to be a long one.

Saturday morning Johnny, Steve, Josh, and I got up at 6am and left the mansion by 6:30 prepared for our travel adventure to Samut Songkhram, a southern province of Thailand. Take a look at the map below. You are about to find out that we did not take the easy way to Samut Songkhram... but that was part of the plan, Mai Pen Rai!

We took a taxi to the Thonburi Railway Station in Bangkok. We got on the non-airconditioned train within minutes of arriving at the station and departed from Thonburi at 7am. We were set to arrive at Maha Chai (in Samut Sakhon) at 7:50am. Let's refer to this as Stop 1. We then walked through a market, got on a ferry (across the Tha Chin River) and then walked through a small town to get to the next railway station. We got on that train at 10:30 and arrived in Samut Songkhram around 12pm. Let's call this stop 2, then hired a tuk-tuk to take us to see the swimming monkeys. Did you catch all that? Taxi to train to walking through market to ferry to walking through town to train to walking through a REAL market to tuk-tuk. What an adventure!

When we arrived at stop 1, we realized that there was a market set up around the train tracks. Food was actually placed on the ground by the train as it passed by. Seemed like an odd place to put a market, but we were intrigued and explored the market for a while. We saw that they mostly sold vegetables and fruits, and while we were hungry- we werent up for buying in bulk... so we continued on.

We made a right out of the market, and ran into this. I know this is not normal in Asia, because other people were taking pictures of this dog.

Continuing on through this side street, I found myself hungry (as I often do in Asia... I swear that my stomach capacity has actually increased over the two weeks. We stopped at this woman's stand to get spring rolls (or not... I mean, they looked like spring rolls, but Ive learned that asking questions in English doesnt really get me anywhere). Oh and make sure you notice the 7-11 in the corner. Told you that they are everywhere. I stopped by this lady again on our way back to Bangkok the next day. The spring rolls were great!

From there we... (this is a quiz).... for those of you who answered, "got on a ferry," you are correct. But not just any ferry, this one actually carried across motorbikes. Thats a first time for me, even in Thailand. This ferry cost me 2 baht. (The train ride cost me 10 baht). You wouldnt guess from this experience, but travel is actually one of the more expensive sections of my budget (next to food of course). The ferry also had a huang nam. Remember what that is?

Did you notice the same thing I did? Look closer at the picture of the huang nam. Yeah, there is no 'catch-all' for this device.

I do have to give it to the ferry operators though, the huang nam was locked, and I couldnt even get it after further inspection of the lock. Seems this facility has been retired.

Good news for the fish!

When we got off the ferry, we were saying poon-poon (which apparently means train in Thai, but only if you put it in the right tones... otherwise, people have NO IDEA what you are saying). We got befriended by the neighborhood Japanese creeper who showed us the train station. Luckily we ran into Widgita (the head monk of the wat we passed by on the way to the train station). He was kind enough to give us a tour of the town while we waited 2 hours for the next train to leave the station. He spoke very good English, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent with him.

Then we walked to the train station to pass away the last hour or so of the wait for the next train. There were two kids playing in the station and nearby pier, and we silently hung out with them for a while. Silently because they just giggled anytime we tried to say anything in Thai. Im assuming our tones were all out of whack. Seems that Thai people would be able to recognize the sound and understand that we are just saying the wrong tone, but they dont. I say every word probably three or four times in different tones before they pick up on what I am trying to say. It feels like I am in 7th grade choir all over again, just picking a different note and hoping that this is the one that she wanted... cause I really cant tell the difference between them.

There we are sitting on the pier. I got bored with the silence and decided to go read my E,P,L book... which is code for take a nap on an uncomfortable row of chairs (cause I went to bed at 1am and woke up at 5am for an important skype date). Josh continued to frolic with the kids until the train came. Johnny was too crippled to do anything (he hurt his foot on a previous trip out of BKK and was on crutches for our trip and his other activities for the past week). Steve did... I really dont know what Steve did, but I did stretch out in his chair when he got up.

Those blue chairs are what I tried to sleep on. I remembered how uncomfortable these chairs were even when we returned to the train station the next day... and the chairs werent there. I was slightly freaked out by their absence.


We took a couple pictures hanging out of the next train. Lets be honest, if you were on a train with windows that were open, wouldnt you want to hang out of them too? The background shows what a lot of the countryside looked like on the way down there. Like a rainforest :] The rest of the countryside looked like the picture below.

Steve slept on this train ride while Johnny and Josh made fun of him. I noticed that he sleeps with his eyes partly open, and after that we were all weirded out.

Do you know what these are? They are salt farms. yeah, NaCl farms. I couldnt believe it at first, but upon Google's analysis, Josh was right when he said they were salt farms. Apparently the farmers let these 'fields' fill up with ocean water a couple inches to a foot deep and then let the water evaporate and leave the salt behind. Then the farmers go 'harvest' the salt. I honestly never thought I would see a salt farm, but the salt farms in Samut Songkhram supply a majority of Thailand's salt. Good to know.

We arrived at stop #2 to find another train market. But this one was MUCH better. Take a look below.

The tracks completely disappeared into the market, which was fully shaded. This was absolutely wild! We walked into the market (who wouldnt). They sold pretty much everything you could want or need in the market, but we soon realized that the train was about to leave.

Most of the displays were on rollers, which allowed the sellers to pull back their items to let the train pass by.

The market completely transformed when the train blew the second horn (which meant that it was actually starting to move toward the market).

See the food that is right up next to the tracks? They didnt move that display, the train just rolled right over it. All of the awnings and roller displays moved out of the way, and the train passed by (about 1.5 feet from my face). None of the market workers showed any concern for the train passing by.

On the other hand, I was a little bit concerned. I just traveled for an hour on this train, and I know how much it sways on the tracks. It felt like it swayed at least a foot back and forth, but I was safe and sound as the train passed by, and then we watched the market immediately unfold again. Josh has this on video, so hopefully you will get to see the wonder of the market in action.

This market was absolutely fascinating.

Then I had to use the huang nam. No western toilets in this town. Or toilet paper. Luckily, I just had to take a #1, but I dont know if any of you other ladies have tried a squat toilet before. I can say that my aim was less than perfect, and that I might have been slightly embarrassed. But, I just got up, shake-and-baked, and went back out to meet the boys. I have since googled 'how to use a squat toilet for women' and consider myself fully educated on the art of proper squat toilet form. Ill let you know when I try it out next.

Then we stopped to eat lunch. We ordered kin kaaw kai (chicken and rice) but she only had pork (I found this fault in a lot of food vendors), so we settled for pork. The lunch conversation centered around the boys experiences with squat toilets and my Asian stereotypes.

"When I get home I need a wok, so that I can continue to be Asian" -yours truly

The boys spent the rest of the lunch mocking me for my comment, but honestly... I would love to have a wok! Everyone has one in Asia. I probably eat two out of three meals in a day out of a wok. The woman who fixed our wonderful lunch is pictured to the right. WITH HER WOK.

Notice the pooh bear tablecloth... Asian women... The food actually turned out quite enjoyable. I mean I just told the lady to fix all of us pork and rice, and she did a great job for under a dollar!

We hailed a tuk-tuk, and Josh asked him about where we were going. Keep in mind that we didnt really know where we were going, we just wanted to see swimming monkeys. The man pointed us in a direction, and the boys were happy to follow the signal, but I wasnt satisfied. We had learned that monkey is ling in Thai, and we know that water is nam. So I proceeded to act out monkey (complete with sound effects) and a swim motion (free-style) while saying ling and nam in every tone combination possible. Yes, I am proud of this episode, because he suddenly understood and told us to hop in (after the boys talked him down to 150 baht for the ride). From the left to the right: Josh, Johnny, Steve, and Jennifer.

He took us to a resort. One person spoke English (we hadnt seen a tourist since we left our hotel that morning). He wanted 8000 baht for one night at a bungalow that sleeps eight, but we talked him down to 2000 baht. It was a really awesome place, and very touristy. Asian touristy, that is. We saw one white person while we were there, and he was with an Asian woman... so I think we were well off the beaten path (which seems to be like the goal of our travel trips).



The travel to get to this resort was half the fun, and the other half was the excitement of what was to come next. It is 1am in Thailand, and Im pretty tired, so Im going to keep this blog to a strict 'travel' post, and Ill post the other adventures tomorrow. We had an awesome time on the journey to Samut Songkhram, but we had no idea how much more awesome the trip would be!

Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shied. For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.                                                Psalm 33:20-22

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I finished Eat, Pray, Love, and it was AWESOME! I am looking for the sequel 'Committed,' but I havent been able to find an English bookstore in BKK with the book. I highly recommend EPL to anyone who is on a spiritual journey, wants to be on a spiritual journey, or wants to walk with a woman who is on one herself. Five stars!